


flowers bloom in the dark

by awkwardedgeworth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (because akaashi is on vacation), Alcohol, Description of Surgery, M/M, Med AU, Mention of alcohol, Mention of past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25570897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardedgeworth/pseuds/awkwardedgeworth
Summary: "I believe it's my turn for music?" He asks Anahori. Atsumu, half of his face covered by the surgical mask, groans.Anahori nods. Sakusa tells him to play Bach's Mass in B Minor. Twenty minutes into the surgery, Atsumu opens his mouth to beg."Please, anythin' but this."in which akaashi abandons sakusa on a three month vacation and leaves him to work with the new temp doctor, an upstart mustard man from hyogo who is bent on infuriating sakusa to death. sakusa, childishly, rises to the challenge.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi, background Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 20
Kudos: 440





	flowers bloom in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> warning for description of surgery (mentions of using a scalpel, a drill, blood), mention of alcoholic beverages
> 
> Minor edit (jul 28): my tired ass wrote squamous cell sarcoma instead of carcinoma oops

"How dare you."

He marches into the shared office he has with the only other doctor he tolerates. Akaashi warily looks up from his computer, leaning back on the ergonomic gaming chair his long time husband had given him through a sponsorship."

How _dare_ you," Sakusa glares, repeating himself, shaking the vacation schedule he ripped out of the bulletin board.

Akaashi slips his glasses off, smiling up at him, "It's only three months. You'll survive."

November marks the beginning of vacation schedules their department has to arrange. Sakusa's eye twitches at the three month long gap Akaashi put in during the summer, sufficiently blocking off his entire June to August agenda.

"You can't leave me in the middle of your night rotation," Sakusa doesn't whine. He doesn't beg or cry or throw a tantrum but he wants to.

"We booked the tickets already."

Sakusa stares at Akaashi. He looks at the little sticky notes attached to the edges of his monitor, at his ergonomic mouse, at his clean, dust-free collection of medical books on his side of the office and the little knick knacks dotting around his work space.

And most of all he stares at the cause of his misery, a certain family picture featuring Akaashi and his husband with their two children on Halloween some years ago. Akaashi is wearing a pink suit monstrosity with a cravat and his husband has his hair slicked back into classic horns, donning a sharp blue suit.

They're both holding one child each. The little girl is dressed as Kiki and the boy is holding a white dragon plush, presumably going as Haku. Everyone pointing at the camera with a big smile.

On the top, Akaashi had written in, _Objection!_ , in English.

It's adorable and makes him feel ill at the same time.

"Sakusa?"

He announces one thing before he leaves his office to tape the vacation schedule back on the wall, no venom in his voice, "You're dead to me."

He drives the entire family to the airport while glaring at the roads. The youngest is squished in the middle seat as she jabbers excitedly about the Portuguese phrases her father is quizzing her on. 

Akaashi is already on vacation mode, not worried at all at the white knuckled grip Sakusa has on the wheel and how he's fifty above the speed limit as they race from Hirakata to KIX, keeping up a running commentary on how Sakusa won't notice how much his absence will be and that he'll do fine.

"Three months will pass quickly. And who knows, maybe you'll befriend the temp worker."

"No," He definitively spits. He hates everyone in the hospital. Only Akaashi understands him, with his neatness and beautiful suturing skills and alphabetized boxes of extra surgical supplies in their shared office.

When his aversion to germs had resulted in his skin cracking and bleeding from too much hand washing, his parents made him see someone who specializes in cognitive behavior therapy.

He still has an immense phobia towards germs. He still washes his hands, but he knows that there are good, healthy colonies that are outnumbering the bad colonies on his skin and in his stomach, protecting him. They're called normal flora.

"And we wouldn't want to wash the good ones away, do we?" His therapist asked.

Sakusa's skin slowly healed. She also recommended a thick hand cream and suggested a simple book targeted for children on the natural symbiotic relationship that exists between bacteria and humans.

And that's how he went down this route. Sakusa, armed with more knowledge about Gram positive and Gram negative organisms than the average high school graduate, had entered medical school expecting no friends with a simple reason: he doesn't get along well with others and they don't get along well with him. 

After six years of chugging coffee, matcha and energy drinks throughout the night, pouring over textbooks and diagrams of the human body and selling his soul to get the MD attached to his name, he came out alive.

And with one friend.

He screeches to a stop outside the ANA gates. Sakusa turns the child lock off as the son, a sixteen year old, disappears to get a luggage trolley.

He pushes the driver's door shut and watches Akaashi go around the back to start unloading luggage from the trunk. 

A chirpy voice enters his ear, "Thanks for the ride, Omi Omi!"

"I hate you," He tells Bokuto Koutarou, retired Olympian and current coach to the local high school his kids are attending.

Bokuto, whose hair had turned all grey due to stress ("—And Miwa, don't forget her. I think Keiji started turning grey right when she turned two. God, they weren't joking when they call it the terrible twos—"), beams happily at him, "We'll bring lots of omiyage back!"

"Don't forget to use sunscreen," He growls. He turns to the nine year old girl next to him, offering hand sanitizer, "And Micchan, don't get lost like last time."

He didn't realize he would like hanging around children so much. They're a cesspool of bacteria, mud and are always somehow very sticky.

But Koji is as even-tempered as Akaashi and Miwa had somehow stolen his heart when she started to speak and recited the names of all the gastrointestinal flora by heart by the age of six.

Miwa grins, slipping the hand sanitizer back into her purple backpack. She salutes, "Yes, Kiyoomi-san!"

"She'll still get lost," Comes Koji's tired drone.

"Shut up, Nini!"

Akaashi clears his throat. Miwa turns red and shuffles behind Sakusa. Bokuto hefts the last luggage onto the trolley and smiles at him, "Well, time for us to go. Come on, you two! I need your eyes to see the screen."

Miwa bounces away as Koji lets out a long suffering sigh, mumbling something about his father always forgetting his reading glasses.

Akaashi doesn't hug him or shake his hand, but he gives Sakusa a reassuring smile.

"Three months will pass by quickly," He reminds him.

Sakusa sighs, "I know. Have fun in Brazil with your family. Be careful of thieves."

Akaashi nods. He leaves, his black hair streaked with grey, through the stress of their work or children, Sakusa doesn't know. He knows that he has some white hairs around his temples that he routinely plucks out as well.

He's not one for whining, but this will be the longest chunk of time he's apart from his friend. And he knows he'll miss him.

Sakusa only works night shift. The hospital didn't have a specific position at first, but since they're a small city with not many doctors and Sakusa absolutely hates people and threatened to go back to Tokyo after his fellowship ended, the director created the position for him.

Akaashi isn't one. He rotates through days and nights like everyone else, but Sakusa always enjoys the time they work together during the night the most, watching surgical videos, traveling documentaries and drinking tea together while they use chilled facial rollers to de-puff their eyes.

Otherwise, he'll spend his nights doing rounds, checking on his patients and listening to music in his office.

He doesn't even realize the new temporary doctor filling in for Akaashi's night shifts has started working until he's called down to the ER for a consult and finds a walking mustard bottle in a white coat speaking in a heavy Kansai accent, flirting with a nurse.

"—Whatdya say about some coffee together, hm? I'm new in town."

Mamiko laughs, tensed. Sakusa finishes his consult and goes to the nurse's station for a free computer to start typing his report. He ignores the poor flirting and manages to keep his mouth shut until he finishes.

Then he leaves both of them, going back to his office to put a record on as he smooths on a brightening face mask.

Nights past. Akaashi sends him pictures and videos of various beaches, mountains and museums. He sighs when they lose Miwa on the streets and found her conversing with a shopkeeper, stranger danger lectures be damned.

They don't interact until Sakusa's entering the OR room and allowing the scrub nurses to pat his arms dry in a joint surgery with him.

"Heya!" A new voice calls out. Sakusa turns, bending his knees so one of the nurses can tie the blue gown around his neck. "Ya must be Sakusa-sensei, am I righ? I'll be assisting you today."

"I am," He coolly regards him, flitting very quickly from the very yellow hair to his watermelon colored crocs and wondering if the doctor knows what purple shampoo is. He feels the stub of his ponytail brushing against the top of his neck as the ties tighten.

The mustard upstart raises one eyebrow, looking him up and down. His mouth twitches up, "Pleasure."

Sakusa doesn't say anything, immediately gathering the nurses and Mustard Man around the computer in the corner. He points out the swelled artery threatening to pop in the patient's cerebral circulation and recites relevant medical history as well as current medications.

" _If_ the artery bursts," Sakusa concludes his debrief, "I want someone to call the lab and order five grams of fibrinogen. Tell them they have twenty minutes to pool it together."

The nurses nods. They know the tight ship he runs in the OR room. Not a moment wasted, every move is carefully planned out.

"Tha's not possible," A voice says. Sakusa turns his head, annoyed, as Mustard Man continues, "If you want it stat then you shoulda ordered it in advance."

"Let's start," Sakusa gestures to the patient, walking away.

Mustard Man follows him, facing him on the opposite side of the patient and frowning. His scrub top says Dr. Miya, "I think you should order it in advance if you think it'll burst."

Sakusa is confident when he says, "It won't," He jerks his chin to one of the scrub nurses to gown Miya-sensei up.

"How d'ya know?" Miya-sensei nearly growls.

Sakusa stares, noticing how deep gold his eyes are.

There are four people in his life he knows who have amber eyes. Bokuto is one. His children are the other two.

The last one is Bokuto's annoying friend who works with Japan Volleyball Association, one smug Kuroo who always calls Bokuto a silver fox now that he's gone fully grey.

Miya's eyes aren't a bright amber like Bokuto's, it's a deep and a richer color, like a burnt amber or caramel.

"Because I'm that good," He says, snapping his long gloves on, "Scalpel."

Japan summers are brutal. It's a fact of life that everyone acknowledges and accepts. The hospital is blissfully temperature controlled and one of the perks of working night shift is that he avoids the blistering afternoon heat when he goes to work, though he's still swimming in humidity. 

He runs a hand through his hair.

"I should get a haircut," He grumbles to his phone, taking his sunglasses off as Akaashi lies on a white lawn chair. There's a twelve hour time difference between Hirakata and Rio. Akaashi is currently spending his morning on the beach, relaxing and listening to the waves with a good book.

" _Tying it up is annoying?_ "

"I don't mind it."

Akaashi's face freezes for a frame. Sakusa sighs, turning off the engine with a press of a button. The connection in the garage sucked.

His face starts moving again once Sakusa nears the elevators, trying not to breathe too much of the petrol and exhaust fumes. He scans his ID to get past the doors and presses the elevator buttons with one gloved hand.

He can't sanitize his hands and hold the phone at the same time. He doesn't have an extra set of arms.

" _—New doctor?_ "

"What?"

" _What?_ " Akaashi parrots, taking off his sunglasses and squinting at his phone, " _Hello?_ "

"Hi," Sakusa says, exiting the elevators and going down the neurosurgery hallway and hanging a left to where the physician offices are. He punches in the PIN code to his office door and enters his haven of clean floors, neatly stacked patient documents and the faint bergamot and lime incense stick from Akaashi's side. "What were you saying?"

Akaashi lies back on his chair. In the background, he can hear Miwa shrieking over the roar of the waves crashing onto some rocks, " _I asked if you've met the temporary doctor yet._ "

"Yes."

" _And?_ "

"And?"

" _What do you think of him?_ "

"Don't like him," Sakusa sets the phone down, strips the glove off and goes for his personal stash of the small alcohol pads the phlebotomists use. "Seems to be a major flirt, talks too much, terrible dye job, hasn't heard of purple shampoo and he has wrinkles already. Probably doesn't use sunscreen either."

Akaashi laughs. Sakusa blinks, wondering if he's wearing some right now. Perhaps he should send Akaashi several peer reviewed papers of how the sun is the number one leading cause of squamous cell carcinoma as a reminder.

" _Is that Kiyoomi-san?_ " Miwa's voice enters. The scene of sand and faraway rocks suddenly changes. He sees Miwa in a soaked black long sleeve, the ends of her pigtails wet. Her face is oddly pasty— good. She's wearing sunscreen.

This is why she's his favorite member of the Bokuto/Akaashi family, Akaashi not included.

"Hello, Micchan," He gives her a smile.

" _Hello! What are you doing right now?_ "

" _Miwa,_ " Akaashi's voice calls off screen, " _Kiyoomi-san has work, why don't you call him tomorrow when he's off?_ "

" _Okay!_ " Sakusa catches a glimpse of the sky and clouds before Akaashi's face comes back.

" _See you later, Sakusa._ "

"Wear sunscreen!" He yells at his phone. Akaashi laughs before their connection drops and he's staring at his home screen, a picture of Miwa in a yukata, aged five, hugging a large brown _djungelskog_ as he crouches next to her with an easy smile directed at the camera. It was his gift to her on her birthday.

Now alone in his office, he rakes his hand through his hair again, sighing and wondering if he should get it trimmed.

His phone chimes. He immediately picks it up, then grabs his white coat and runs to the ER.

"Miya," He stiffly says, yanking away the privacy curtain and wondering why he's here.

Miya turns to him, dressed in his street clothes. He's wearing a black shirt with an onigiri symbol and track pants with two vertical stripes running down the sides. 

"Heya," He greets him. 

Sakusa stares at the patient, annoyed. When he was called, the nursed had spoken to him about a potential head trauma. He was expecting blood and deformed skulls, but he can already tell from a mile away that this person just had too much to drink and cut his forehead.

"What are you doing here?" To the nurse hovering at the foot of the bed, Sakusa tells her to order a toxicology panel and to send the patient for a CT scan of his head just in case. He goes to the sanitizer mounted on the wall and pulls gloves on, waving his pen light to check for pupillary reflex.

"My brother and I were eating nearby. I think he has a stomach bug so I'm accompanying him."

"You can go back to him," Sakusa doesn't know if Miya is working tonight or not, "I have things under control."

"Hey don't just brush me off," A grumble comes from the man across of him. Sakusa, satisfied, clicks his pen light off and takes a small pump of sanitizer to clean it. Miya follows him to the hand washing station after Sakusa tells the patient that someone will come by shortly to take his blood.

Sakusa stomps on the trigger, water flowing out. He wets his forearms and starts scrubbing as Miya says without hesitation, "Yer _real_ prickly, aren't ya? It's all the nurses talk of around here."

Sakusa's eye twitches at the word 'prickly', immediately being petty, "Did you find that out through your failed dates?"

Miya inhales sharply next to him, "You don't know the dates failed."

"People talk," He pulls some paper towels above the faucet and dries his hands, turning around to see Miya with an irritated expression.

Miya smirks, "Oh? You don't seem the type to listen to gossip. Are ya listening because yer interested in me or somethin'?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Sakusa throws his wet paper towels into the bin next to the sink. "I'm not the desperate one, flirting with everyone left and right."

"So ya noticed me," Miya smugly says.

Sakusa raises one eyebrow, "You noticed me first. What did you say just now? ' _You don't seem the type to listen to gossip?_ '"

With that, he leaves Miya and exits the ER, going back to his floor to type the patient report there.

He grits his teeth as Miya bumps elbows with him.

"Been seein' a lot of ya this week, Sakusa _-sensei_."

"Likewise," Sakusa spits, typing faster and faster in hopes that he can return to his office and put on a foot mask. He's glaring at the computer when he feels a ticklish, light feeling near his ear.

He whips around to Miya laughing. He wonders how often he goes to the hair salon. He never sees him with terrible roots, as if the moment some black appears, the prat runs to destroy his hair again. 

"Are you five?" He demands, "Stop playing with my hair."

"Aw, don't be so prickly! It's so cute when the fluff is springin' up."

"Stay away from me, Miya."

"Atsumu," Miya suddenly looks irritated. "Call me Atsumu."

"Why would I call you your given name?" Sakusa finishes his report by stabbing the period key and saving his report. He logs out of his account, turning to face the other doctor.

"I have a twin brother. I hate it when people call me Miya."

Sakusa rolls his eyes, "My condolences to your long suffering brother," To the head nurse in the ER, he tells her that he'll be in the neurosurgery break room.

He checks on the AVM patient from three weeks ago. As the head surgeon, once he finished his job, it was in his right to leave the OR and let his assisting suture the skin. He was there earlier when the nurses changed the patient's bandages during his evening rounds.

Much as he hates to admit, Atsumu's suturing skills was precise. It's likely the patient won't scar once his hair grows back.

He fiddles with the painkiller drip with a gloved hand before leaving the room quietly.

He enters the break room to catch up on some of the neurosurgery journals sent to their hospital when his eyelids grow heavy. The hours between two and four in the morning are always the hardest.

He sets up an alarm for a nap and closes his eyes.

When he wakes up, there's a weird tingling feeling near his ear and he snaps his eyes open. He growls at Atsumu, "I'm going to toss you out the window."

Atsumu, relaxing in the chair with his laptop in front of him, laughs, "But yer so fun to tease!"

Sakusa slams his journal shut and storms out of the break room into his office.

He's cutting his hair.

"Holy shit."

Sakusa sighs, scrubbing his forearms with the betadine brick at a faster pace. Wrist. Forearm. Lather some for his actual hands.

"Ho-ly. Shit!" Atsumu says next to him, stomping on the floor trigger for water to shoot out of the faucet. He grabs a new brick of soap and tears the packaging open, red-orange foam lathering his forearms nicely.

"What do you want?"

"You actually look good with an undercut! Were ya inspired by me or something?"

"What would it take for you to get your inflated head out of your ass?" Sakusa sighs through his nose. 

Every day, he wishes Akaashi to come back sooner and sooner. Only two more months to go.

Atsumu's grin is dark, "What about a night together?"

"I don't do one night stands," Sakusa brushes him off. He presses on the pedal and slowly moves his arm through the water, watching the orange suds flow and swirl around the drain.

" _Oh_."

"What?" Sakusa asks, voice clipped.

"Nothin', I just...assumed that you never dated. Since you're so prickly all the time."

Sakusa stomps on the foot pedal a little harder than necessary, the water halting. 

"You know what they say about assumptions," He leaves first and enters the OR room, standing with water running down his forearm. Anahori comes forward to wipe his forearms and Sakusa bends his knees for someone to quickly tie the gown around his neck and waist.

"I believe it's my turn for music?" He asks Anahori. Atsumu, half of his face covered by the surgical mask, groans.

Anahori nods. Sakusa tells him to play Bach's Mass in B Minor. Twenty minutes into the surgery, Atsumu opens his mouth to beg.

" _Please,_ anythin' but this."

"Drill," Sakusa says. He sets his scalpel down and watches as Atsumu finishes retracting the flesh aside to expose the ivory curve of the skull.

"Why can't we listen ta something more modern?" Atsumu whines. His words are swallowed by the loud whirring of the drill. Sakusa takes his time, smirking at Atsumu, who is glaring daggers.

When he shuts it off he tells him, "This music is better than the shit that comes out of your mouth."

Anahori and a few nurses snickers.

"Who the hell," He hisses to Akaashi, cooking his 'lunch' right before he leaves for the hospital, jiggling the wok as he tosses a large batch of fried rice, "Listens to tropical house radio? Kygo? Dua Lipa?? They sound like surgical instruments!"

Akaashi, sitting outside as servers flit around him carrying large, white plates heavy with food and bottles of alcohol with condensation running down the sides, smiles.

"Stop smiling!"

" _I've never seen you so worked up about another doctor._ "

Sakusa can't see him very well due to the poor lighting of the street seating and sunset, but it looks like Akaashi had turn a shade darker, "Are you wearing sunscreen? Are you using the vitamin C serum I gave you? You look crispy."

" _Yes. Stop ignoring me. Do you like him?_ "

In the background, Miwa's curious voice pipes up, asking if Kiyoomi-san has a boyfriend. Bokuto asks how she knows that word with a teary sob.

"I'm disowning you," Sakusa glares at Akaashi.

Akaashi raises both hands up. His sunglasses is tucked in the V-neck of his white linen shirt, no doubt something he bought there, " _You know what they say...._ "

Sakusa feels an odd sense of deja vu.

" _....If you keep bickering with them, you don't actually hate them_."

He sniffs, "Thank you for your unwanted thoughts on this matter. I need to go."

Akaashi chuckles, waving goodbye as the video call ends.

There isn't much he does on his days off asides housework and cleaning. Sometimes he'll eat dinner with Akaashi's family. On his vacations, he goes back to Tokyo to visit his parents who are always worrying about how he's going to spend the rest of his life alone.

If his sisters are in town, he'll meet them. Otherwise, he likes his space and fills the empty hours with things that entertain him, whether that be babysitting Miwa in the Sanrio shop as she careful tells him very important details of each Sumikko Gurashi character she sets her eyes on or go down a music black hole as he discovers more music.

Maybe the reason why he amuses Atsumu and keeps bickering at him is simply because he is lonely sometimes.

"When's the last time ya went outside, Omi-kun?"

Sakusa glares at Atsumu, only venturing out of his office to buy some matcha from the vending machine near the elevators. 

"Have you been waiting here to pounce on me?" He asks, slipping some coins and stabbing a button. The bottle tumbles down noisily and he fishes it out.

"Well, just worried about your health," Sakusa stares at his very yellow hair. He wonders if he should throw a bottle of purple shampoo at his head when Atsumu smirks at him, "You seem lonely. An' very pale. Like a vampire."

"Out of everyone in the hospital, you come to me. If you know what vampires are like then I suggest you stay out of my way."

"I'll start calling ya Uni-kun. _Ohhh_ , that glare means it's not good. How 'bout Omi-niku? Haha get it?"

"I'll kill you," Sakusa vows, glaring at him and stomping away.

He enters his office, cleans the bottle with an alcohol wipe and twists the cap off.

He spits out his tea when a voice drawls, "Wow, this might be the cleanest office I've ever seen."

" _Did you follow me?_ " He coughs, glaring at Atsumu hovering at the door. He plucks some tissues and wipes the dark spots on his scrub top. "How are you so silent?"

Atsumu has a weird smile on his face. It dawns on Sakusa that it's his genuine smile; he's never seen him not smirking before, "Samu and I used ta sneak up on each other all the time."

"Now that you've seen the inside, kindly get out."

"Speaking without formality?" Atsumu mocks, "What if I'm older than you?"

"You're not. You may have more wrinkles and fine lines than me but Mamiko told her friends you're forty. We're the same age."

" _Wrinkles?!_ I don't have wrinkles!"

"You do. I bet you don't wear sunscreen or incorporate retinoids into your skin care routine."

Atsumu makes a face, glancing at his bookshelves that hold several bottles of various hair pomades, face moisturizers and heavy duty hand creams from the amount of hand washing he does during flu season.

He spots the mini fridge Akaashi gifted to him, "I bet that's filled with those girly creams."

"And I still look twenty-five. Cry me a river, Atsumu."

Atsumu blinks, eyes widening, "You called me Atsumu."

Sakusa sips more tea, frowning, "Yes? Because you told me you don't like to be called Miya."

He looks down at the research paper he's been reading. His office faces the Yodo River and in the summer, he likes to watch the sun slowly rise before doing his last rounds. A pale orange light weakly enters and falls on his table in the pattern of the metal blinds that are tugged up.

"So," Atsumu sighs, sitting down and taking a dollop of sanitizer on the table as he rubs it in his hands, "Tell me about sunscreens."

They talk until they realize they're late for morning rounds. He thought that would be the end of it, because he knows Bokuto and Kuroo sometimes gets glazed-eyed when they let wine-drunk Sakusa ramble on about retinoids and Vitamin C serums.

So he's not sure why Atsumu tugs him to a nearby Sukiya for breakfast on the insistence that he continues his talk about skincare over bowls of warm rice, seared salmon and miso soup.

"So I'm working tonight but are you off?" Atsumu asks as they awkwardly zip up their jackets all the way up to the collar to hide the tell-tale scrub top neckline. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, "I don't wan' ta interfere with yer sleep schedule."

"I am," Sakusa says, folding the wooden chopstick paper into a chopstick holder. No one gives them odd looks for wearing sunglasses inside the restaurant.

"...I'd appreciate it if ya can help me pick a few skin stuff at the mall when it open?"

To his utter surprise, Sakusa finds himself agreeing, Akaashi's words echoing in his head.

"Ya know," Atsumu says one night after they crawled out of a brutal emergency brain tumor resection operation that took eight hours. Sakusa had been called to come in five hours early because there were no neurosurgeon who could have done that specific operation and now they're lounging in his office, face cooled by the sheet masks Sakusa keeps in his mini fridge, "This is actually relaxin'. The cold is nice."

"The cold reduces puffiness."

"Yea, I need it," Atsumu bitterly snaps.

Sakusa sighs, "I already apologized."

"I just made a comment about your headband!"

Sakusa opens his eyes to glare at him. Atsumu looks ridiculous with the large ribbon cloth headband keeping his bangs back but it was the only one left in stock when they went to the mall the other day.

"You said my headband looked gross."

"It _is_ gross! What's a full grown man doing wearin' a headband with _bear ears?_ "

"My god child gave it to me!" Sakusa reaches forward to flick Atsumu's forehead again. "Apologize!"

"OW! Yer so damn childish!"

" _You're_ childish!" Sakusa shoots back, closing one eye as they both glare at each other. He checks his watch. Fifteen more minutes before he can take the mask off and rub the leftover essence on his neck, collarbones and hands.

"I've been meaning ta ask," Atsumu says, voice curious, "Yer not from around here right? Yer Osaka accent is not that strong."

"I'm from Tokyo."

"Ah, that makes sense," He looks around the office more, sitting up and gazing at the pictures on Akaashi's side of the room. He stares at one with Sakusa and Bokuto standing in front of Tempozan, Miwa on his shoulders and Koji grinning at the camera, "Is he yer friend?"

"Yes, we went to school together. He's vacationing for three months, hence your temporary position."

"Shit, is tha' Bokuto Koutarou?" Sakusa nods and Atsumu inhales, eyes growing round, "Oh my god, Samu's gonna lose his shit."

"Fans?"

Atsumu points to his gelled hair, "He's the Gatsby hair model right? We both follow volleyball back in high school. Did ya play sports or were you one of those music kids?"

"I fenced."

"Ah no wonder, ya always tried to stab my hand with the scalpel."

"Only because you have the worst taste in music on this entire planet."

Atsumu jiggles Sakusa's computer awake, "No," He shakes his head, eyebrows heavy with distrust, "No fuckin' way. I'm going to pull my favorites songs on youtube and you're going to like one of them if it takes me all night to convince you that modern music _is_ good."

He misses Akaashi's biweekly video call because Atsumu dragged him out to Torikizoku for some yakitori skewers. Akaashi doesn't say anything, but Sakusa knows the married man is raising one eyebrow in a high arch as he sends pictures of sea creatures he found during snorkeling the following morning.

_Look at this sea star_ , Akaashi texts. _So, it seems that you've found yourself in the presence of your worst nightmare._

_Did you see dolphins?_ Sakusa replies. _Shut up, I'm losing my sanity here without you and I actually like Billie Eilish now. Fix this._

_We did. Koji had to hold Miwa's life jacket so she wouldn't jump overboard to get a better view of them_ , Akaashi types. Sometimes Sakusa wonders what goes through Miwa's head, but he supposes she's still at that stage in life where childhood wonder overwrites the danger of falling abroad and into the ocean. _Are you seeing your worst nightmare?_

_I hate you,_ Sakusa types, a rising pressure appearing in his chest as he watches the three little dots in the chat appear. He wonders what Akaashi will mention when it briefly goes away.

A picture pops up. Akaashi and Bokuto are holding cocktails by the beach, their eyes covered by sunglasses. Bokuto is looking entirely too crispy for Sakusa's liking.

_It's nine in the morning._

_I'm on vacation,_ Akaashi replies. And that had been that.

Their shift goes like this: they would do rounds first, then somehow make their way to the neurology break room where Atsumu has gotten the last Red Karaage-kun from the conbini, wolfing it down as Sakusa warns him of the debilitating effects he'll see next morning.

They're free to do whatever they want until the next rounds, which is sometimes at midnight. For the more critically ill patients, Sakusa pushes Atsumu out of his mind and devotes himself to the patient's bedside. But they're not a university hospital nor are they a major center, so this doesn't happen often.

Free time usually meant talking while going through Sakusa's fifteen step night skin care routine. If the nurses peek inside the room to find two of their doctors with sheet masks on, they don't say anything to them when they stroll out with dewy skin.

Their last rounds is at five in the morning, a final check to make sure the patients are fine. Then day shift comes in at seven and they have a full team huddle for half an hour before the night staff is released.

He learns a lot about Atsumu during the quiet nights. He learns about his reason to pursue medicine, the friends he grew up with, his twin brother and his onigiri shop, his grandmother's house they would spend their summers at, the endless visits to the beach during middle school and other musical genres other than _modern_ and _bad taste_.

They listen to King Gnu, London Grammar, Lana Del Rey and Glass Animals during Atsumu's music day. The scrub nurses look at each other in awe when Sakusa hums along to the songs subconsciously.

"What the fuck," One nurse mumbles.

Sakusa points the hand holding his scalpel to the door, not even lifting his head as he watches Atsumu follow his hands with the suction, "Get out if you're not going to focus."

Atsumu kicks him under the patient bed, somehow finding his leg, "Be nice."

Sakusa gives the nurse one warning glare, retreating his hand back to the patient.

He broadens Atsumu's music as well. They relax in his bergamot and lime scented office with snail mucus drying on their faces, the mournful croon of a French Horn solo softly playing from Sakusa's computer.

"Mars and Jupiter are overrated," Sakusa tells him, "Venus is much more likable."

Atsumu learns of Holst, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Ólafur Arnalds, Head Ööd, Vend, Ola Gjeilo, and various choral pieces and orchestral arrangements in the darkest parts of night.

"Can you play this?" Atsumu gestures to the video of the pianist they're watching, his skin dewy and shiny after he'd peeled off his sheet mask. Sakusa is rubbing the leftover essence onto his neck like his mother taught him.

"Yes," Satie's Gymnopédies are easy to play. He tells Atsumu this, watching the doctor gaze at him with a look he doesn't understand. He continues to answer an email from a doctor in Tokyo about a certain procedure Sakusa specializes in, the soft chords disappearing into Ravel's famous Pavane.

They fall into a comfortable silence. Sakusa likes this recording the best— too many orchestras and soloists play it at a faster tempo that it's meant to. 

"Omi?"

"Hm?"

"What do ya think about when you're listening to this?"

Sakusa lets his wrists relax, feeling a slight twinge of discomfort from his left one. Perhaps he held it too long during surgery the other day.

"Nothing, Atsumu," It's probably not the answer he's looking for, "I listen to it so it can clear my head."

Atsumu hums, his chair creaking as he wiggles into it, "I might have ta let you win this time. This type of music actually is good."

Sakusa doesn't say anything witty. He simply nods and sits back in his chair as the next leitmotif floats through the air.

The nights blur.

July passes in a flash. Sakusa video chats Miwa on her birthday and catches up with Akaashi and Bokuto once she falls asleep on the hotel couch. Koji dutifully picks her up and puts her to sleep, greeting him with a tired hello.

He gets dinner/breakfast with Atsumu before work most days now. Despite Kobe and Osaka only being thirteen minutes away by shinkansen, he apparently hasn't explored much of Osaka, nevertheless Hirakata.

"Your brother has a shop here," He scathingly tells Atsumu, sitting with a view of Tempozan in front of them. They just finished looking at the aquarium, "How could you _not_ have sight-see?"

"It's completely different!" Atsumu argues, watching the sun slowly drooping. Sakusa drove his car here so they won't be relying too much on public transport. "Whenever I visited Samu he always made me work! I'm the one doin' all the rice sack lifting and washin'!"

They bicker more, nibbling on their respective takoyakis and sipping on some cold green tea from the conbini before Sakusa calls it a day and drives them back to Hikarata to start their 12 hour shift.

"Where's Miya-sensei?"

Sakusa doesn't stop rifling through the papers at the nursing station, trying to find one specific form, but his hands slow down as the nurses in the station hesitate at the new nurse who had asked.

"He's...." One vaguely shakes his head, "The patient in room 614 expired. You know how hopeful sensei was about that patient. I think he's taking a walk somewhere. Let's give him some time to himself."

"Ah...yes."

Sakusa plucks the form he's looking for and finishes his errand in the nurses' station. He slips away and takes the emergency stairs down to the ground floor before exiting out of a side door, feeling the humidity beginning to sink into his hair when he sees a large willow tree with its branches and leaves drooping to the ground.

He takes a step forward, raising one arm as the dry leaves scratch his skin, pushing the curtain away.

Atsumu gives him a look as he returns to looking up at the sky, his chin and the bottom of his nose lit up from his phone as he holds it in his hand.

Wordlessly, he pulls out one earbud and offers it, his eyes glowing.

Sakusa takes an inhale of the summer air— with all it's heavy fragrance of hydrangeas and heady soil, inserting the little silicone nub in his ear.

Atsumu shoves his hands in his scrub pockets. His eyes seem more tired, but they're not the red and puffy ones Sakusa expects.

Atsumu raises one leg and kicks a stone into a bush, his eyebrows pulling together as he bends his neck down, the coil of muscle in his forearms taut.

"Fuck."

"I can leave if you prefer to be alone."

"...No, thanks for coming here, Omi. Samu says I can't be alone for too long or I'll end up spiralin' down."

Sakusa averts his eyes from the wet eyes of his fellow doctor, looking up at the sky and seeing that the clouds have parted slightly to reveal the lonely moon.

Atsumu takes an inhale, "The moon's beautiful."

Sakusa doesn't look at Atsumu's white blond hair he managed to tone with the purple shampoo that was mysteriously gifted to him in his temporary office. Oddly, he now wishes it was back to it's former brassy color.

Something is brushing against his fingers.

Instead, he thinks of Akaashi's return in two weeks, heart heavy. He shies away slightly from Atsumu's hands.

"Yeah."

Nothing happens on Atsumu's last shift. Some of the nurses from both the ER and neurosurgery throw him a party that Sakusa attends for an hour before he gets called down to the ER for a consult. The patient has a subarachnoid bleed and by the time he gets out of OR, it's already nine in the morning and Atsumu had left.

He's glad that he has two days off. He goes home to collapse in the safety of his dark bedroom, trying not to think much.

Akaashi greets him when he returns with a large bag of souvenirs, looking entirely too tanned as Sakusa points out every single new fine lines he has from the sun as he enters Sakusa's too large apartment.

"You're going to age! Do you want to look like a leather couch?"

Akaashi laughs, "I don't mind aging with Koutarou."

Sakusa makes a face, "Take the sunscreen, won't you?"

Things return to normal. Sakusa cooks at home, doesn't eat out, stays far away from Kuroo when they're both visiting the Akaashi household and continues to work at the hospital.

He sighs, idly clicking around his desktop. Akaashi is back on nights with him, but they both have papers to review or else they would have turned on Planet Earth and let the voice of David Attenborough soothe them.

He's so restless these days. Even listening to Harold Budd leaves him with an unsatisfactory feeling in his mouth.

"Sakusa," Akaashi tiredly says, "If you want to date him just give him a call already."

"Stop reading me so easily," He grumbles, "How do you know?"

"You've been moping around for months. Please put me out of my misery and call him. There's going to be an opening soon since Yamiji will be retiring, it's perfect, isn't it?"

Sakusa stares at his keyboard. 

"Just because..." Akaashi trails off, "Just because your last relationship ended like that doesn't mean that your next one is doomed to fail."

He clenches his fist, remembering the croons of a gramophone playing in the back of his apartment as a ten year relationship halts to a stop with an admission of giving up, the ring sitting on the table as the front door clicked to a shut.

"Not everyone can have a happy marriage like yours," It comes out more bitter than he intended. 

Akaashi's eyes are soft. Sakusa wonders why he's friends with him after all these years, watching hurt flit over his expression.

He apologizes, listening to the rain pitter patter on the windows.

"It's okay to be afraid, it means you care."

* * *

To: Miya Atsumu [Neurosurgery, Konan]  
From: Sakusa Kiyoomi [Neurology, Daijukai]

[link]

There's an opening here.

Sakusa Kiyoomi, MD, PhD  
Assistant Professor, Neurosurgeon  
Faculty of Neurology  
Daijukai Hospital  
Office: + 81 72 XXXXXXXX

To: Sakusa Kiyoomi [Neurology, Daijukai]  
From: Miya Atsumu [Neurosurgery, Konan]

haha

missin me after all these months?

_Sent from my iPhone_

Miya Atsumu, MD, PhD  
Neurosurgeon  
Faculty of Neurosurgery  
Konan Medical Centre, Konnakai Medical Group  
Office: + 81 78 XXXXXXXX

* * *

"You're insufferable," He says, picking up the call from his office phone an hour after he's sent the email. Akaashi, out of the corner of his eyes, reaches for his headphones to clamp them around his ears.

Atsumu is laughing, " _Is that ya how greet me after months? How's life over there?_ "

"The same. Did you see my email?"

" _Of course I did. A full time position for Neurology in that hospital of yers sounds tempting._ "

"But?" Sakusa pushes, hearing the creak of an office chair in the background.

" _My parents always said that making big life decisions based on feelings or people are bad_."

"It's up to you if you want to take it," Sakusa doesn't tell him how he'd grown to tolerate the man after their nights together in the hospital and how he'll march up the director himself and tell him that he's wasting Atsumu's talent away if he doesn't accept him as an applicant.

Atsumu sounds fond, " _Well, comin' from you this is like an order to move there, am I right?_ "

Sakusa turns to look at Akaashi. He's focusing on the excel spreadsheet in front of him as he organizes next year's budget. He knows that both Akaashi and Bokuto are trying to make sure Koji and Miwa have sufficient university funds to allow for travelling in case either of them wants to go abroad.

He used to think he could have had that— the sticky baby, the family vacations, the dinner hosting and game nights, the arguments and hard work that needs to be put in for a relationship to thrive. 

He still can have it if he's brave enough.

"I wouldn't mind if you move here and become a permanent fixture of the neurology department."

" _Look outside yer office window._ "

"What," Sakusa flatly says, because he's summoned up the courage to spill his innermost feelings to Atsumu and Atsumu is telling him to look out his window.

He feels irritated as he pushes against the forty something year old wooden panes to peer out at the rain and glistening stone path around the perimeter wall, "And _why_ should I look out—"

Atsumu grins, holding a white plastic bag in one hand and waving up at him with the hand holding his cell phone, hair flat against his skull.

"Uni-kun! Come down!"

Sakusa feels his face morph into an odd twist, slowly leaning back in and ending his call. He gives Akaashi a look, finding his office partner still typing, lost in his own world.

He marches straight for the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevators. Atsumu isn't standing in the ER when he walks towards the entrance, so he plucks an umbrella left behind in a bin— _don't think about the disgusting handle for now, you can wash your hands later_ — and ventures outside.

He'd like to say summers are better with rain, but it's as humid as it is normally. He pats his hair, trying to gauge how frizzy it is currently when he turns around the building's corner and sees Atsumu below his office window, smiling.

"Heya, Uni-kun."

"Stop calling me that," He automatically says, closing the distance and tilting the umbrella to cover more of Atsumu. The shoulders of his dark button up is soaked, as is his hair and his flip flops.

Atsumu dangles the white bag in front of him before he can ask him why he's here at this time of night.

"Special delivery from Onigiri Miya, you've never tried it, right?" Atsumu peeks into the bag, "I molded these myself, so they don't look as good as the one Samu makes, but I got ya a variety. Tuna mayo, umeboshi, white miso an' natto, grilled unagi, mentaiko, an' cheese tonkatsu."

Atsumu carefully makes sure their fingers don't touch when Sakusa opens his free palm as he transfers the plastic handholds of the bag to him.

He yelps when Sakusa grips onto his wrist.

"Why are you screaming?"

"Why are ya holding me? I haven't washed my hands!"

"Neither have I," Sakusa says, already fighting the urge to pull out the travel size 70% alcohol spray in his white coat, "You decided to drive all the way here from Osaka just to deliver me your brother's onigiri at three in the morning?"

Atsumu turns ruby red, ducking his head and trying to put as much distance as he can between them while still being under the cover of the umbrella, "...Well, when you put it like that, yeah."

"Don't tell me you were texting and driving—"

"Samu was driving. We nearly died, but I made it here in one piece."

Sakusa looks at the bag. There's entirely too much food and he knows he shares an office with an onigiri snob, "Not that I don't appreciate it, but why...?"

The rain continues to pitter patter. Sakusa looks at the horrid cabbage roses print of Atsumu's shorts, finding several faint lightning shaped stretch marks on his knees from his growth spurt that hasn't faded.

"I jus' wanted ta see you," Atsumu finally says, eyes on his shoes, "And I kinda miss this dinky little hospital if I were ta be honest."

Atsumu has a large wrist, with veins that bulge beneath the skin and a too-quick pulse like the heartbeat of a hummingbird. 

"I hated ya at first, you acted like everyone should kiss the ground yer walking on. I thought to myself 'who's this upstart doctor from the boonies that all the nurses bow down to?'"

Sakusa feels his cheeks lift.

"I didn't realize you were part of several neurosurgery textbooks— _The Atlas of the Cerebral Circulation for Computerized Tomography, The Handbook of Neurology Fundamentals, Cranial Anatomy and Surgical Procedures_ —nor did I realize ya wrote the entire online lecture and quiz component for Todai's Neurology course, which is impressive. I jus' hated yer stupid fluffy hair, yer stuffy attitude and yer obsession with going in and out of the OR room as quickly as possible.

"I visited Samu a day ago and he said I looked like shit, which is entirely untrue, but he forced me to make onigiris with him all day long and said I looked happier back when I was in Hirakata," Atsumu sways on his tip toes, "So I guess I'm here for my job interview."

"It's a national holiday on Monday, Atsumu, the director and head of Neurology won't be in until Tuesday morning," Sakusa says, watching Atsumu's eyebrows pull in together.

"Yeah I know! But anyway that's why I'm _here_ here, I didn't drive from Kobe to Hirakata on a whim in the middle of the night and broke into my brother's store, 'kay?"

"Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

Atsumu blinks. Sakusa finally meets his eyes, seeing the pink lingering around his cheeks, "Uh. I mean, I always crash at Samu's place."

"I have a spare bedroom."

Atsumu considers this.

"Yer not a very straight forward kind of guy are ya, Omi? I feel like ya just let things happen because they happen and let yourself react to it afterwards."

"Are you going to accept my offer?" Sakusa almost growls at him, wanting to punch his stupid face and tell him so but withholding it because he knows Atsumu will quip back about how he's now thinking about him.

"Prickly," Atsumu laughs, twisting his wrist so he's holding onto Sakusa's hand, his index finger stroking the bump of his ulna, "This okay?"

He hasn't held someone's hand like this in years. It'll be like riding a bike. Bumpy at first, but he'll eventually fall back into the groove again.

He nods, linking their fingers tighter.

He bends down to rub Atsumu's blond head, sneaking out of their room as quietly as he can.

"Omi...?" He opens one eye, looking at the clock. It's past ten already. "Did you get called in or something? I thought ya weren't suppose to start day shift until next week."

"I have to see the counselor remember?"

Atsumu shuts his eyes again, curling up like a shrimp. Sakusa sighs with envy at the three blankets he's huddled in, knowing he has to brave the snow and wind to get to the office for his bimonthly session. It was something Akaashi offhandedly suggested when Sakusa confessed to him how on edge he is on making sure he's not letting Atsumu down with all the heavy baggage he has.

Some days are hard. Some days are good.

"Righ, righ," Another enormous yawn, "Haf fun."

"Thanks," Sakusa dryly says. He sticks his cold hands onto Atsumu's neck briefly, watching the shrimp roll wriggle around and shriek, "And remember to hand in your vacation form. You booked the plane tickets, right?"

"Yea, yea," The lump says. Atsumu's head pokes out, his hair disarrayed, eyes crusty and puffy with sleep as he blearily blinks, "I'll remember."

Sakusa grins, kissing the top of his head goodbye before he pads out of their bedroom and shuts the door quietly behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> atsumu's 'omi-niku, get it?' is a reference to a breed of Omi cattle from Shiga Prefecture. uni is sea urchin in japanese. special thanks to @immunysystem for her music recommendations! 
> 
> the djungelskog is a stuffed brown bear from ikea
> 
> welcome if you have reached this end notes! this is my first sakuatsu fic because...i guess i got sucked into this hole haha.  
> please channel your inner sakusa and wash your hands diligently! and wear facial coverings!


End file.
